Deep section · A — Awareness

Awareness (A): when information is taken up by a system

Awareness, in IO, is not yet full-blown human consciousness. It is the minimal condition under which information is systematically used by a system to shape its own ongoing behaviour or organisation.

1. From passive structure to active use

Up to the I stage, information can be entirely passive: patterns in the world that constrain possibilities whether or not anything does anything with them. Awareness appears when:

• there is a system with some internal organisation, and
• that organisation is updated or modulated in a regular way by information.

The thermostat is a toy example, but it makes the point: information about temperature is not idle; it directly affects the system's state and output.

2. Degrees and layers of awareness

Awareness in this sense admits of degrees:

• A simple feedback controller tracks a single variable and responds with a fixed rule.
• A cell responds to chemical gradients in many dimensions, altering complex metabolic networks.
• A brain integrates huge volumes of multi-modal information into unified behaviour.

IO does not assume that all these cases involve experience in the same sense. The common thread is: information is being used to shape the system in ways that depend on its internal organisation.

3. Awareness and self-maintaining systems

Awareness becomes especially interesting when the system has something like a "stake" in the outcome: it can persist or fall apart. A rock may register impacts in its structure, but it does not organise around maintaining itself. A living cell does.

IO links richer forms of awareness to systems that use information to maintain, protect, or extend their own organisation. This sets the stage for value: some informationally guided states will be better or worse for that ongoing project.